My Ego Monster Made Me Fall

I am full of it sometimes.I like to pretend that I'm not, but. . . .
Everyone knows how that goes.
Not to long ago, I was reminded my ego monster needs to stay in it's rightful place.
Some players on my roller derby team and I traveled to Seattle to take part in a two day derby camp, put on by Carmen Getsome. (I don't know if you are familiar with derby, but no one uses their real name. Everyone has nicknames so I don't know Carmen's real name.) It was a wonderful adventure to lean about derby! I remember walking into the polished concrete room where all the skating would take place. I stood at the doorway, in awe of the two hundred skaters who were putting on their pads and skates. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous too. Derby's rough and I knew without a doubt most of the girls at the camp could beat me up with no problem!
Anyways, when the camp started, I had to chose which class I wanted to attend. There were classes for beginners, intermediate, and advanced. I looked at the advanced classes available, and they looked so cool! But, I probably would get my face skated over if I went to an advanced classes. Hum . . . the beginner's class? No! I'm not that lame! I've been skating since I was eight! I can do the intermediate class, no sweet! (Do you see where this is going?)
So, I (very stupidly by the way) went to the intermediate class, which was taught by Shorty Ounce (a player on the Rat City Roller Girls team in Seattle). I looked at the beginner class and saw they were learning how turn from back to front on skates. Ha! I can do that in my sleep! Good thing I went to the intermediate class! The class started and I was ready to go with my snazzy new skates and my bright blue helmet. The twenty players and I skated around the track and everything was going just fine. Oh, yeah! I'm so cool! I thought. Good thing I'm not in the beginner's class! I hope their jealous at my awesomeness -  
"Ah!"

I fell.

And tripped another player. Okay, two other players.
I scrambled to my feet and tried not to get skated over by other players. A thought crossed my mind. Um . . . this might not be a good idea. 
Any doubt of being in over my head vanished thanks to the next drill.
When Shorty Ounce explained what we had to do, I almost croaked. Tomahawks. Tomahawks on skates look like this: skate really fast, turn backwards (either by stepping or jumping) and come to a stop on one's toes. Want to see it? Click here.
Now, just to be clear, at the time I had never even heard of a Tomahawk let alone knew how to do it. I couldn't do it. It wasn't like, oh maybe if I really focus and try hard. No! I could not do it!
So that's when I swallowed my stupid pride and skated over to the beginner's class. Do you know how bad it feels to leave a class of amazing skaters who do crazy stuff perfectly to go to the lowly beginners? Yeah. I wasn't happy.
Needless to say, I stayed in the beginner's class for the rest of the camp, which was the right thing to do. After my ego monster was subdued and put back in it's corner, the camp was so much fun! I learned a lot, got to know my teammate even better, and see Canadian money for the first time! (There were several Canadians there and their money is so colorful and shiny!)
So the next time your ego monster starts taking over, just remember me falling on my face and tripping two players as we all tried not to get plowed by twenty other skaters.
I know I will.